Cultural Competence and the Culture of Medicine

The profession of medicine: a joint US–German collaborative project in medical education

“…This is particularly important in face of the fact that today's graduating physician faces a very different patient population than in the past, a more proactive population armed with internet education, expectations of cultural sensitivity, and demands for honesty, information, and choices from their medical practitioners. Multiple movements from within society have encouraged changes within medical education -immigrant initiatives (Fox 2005), gender equality (Vlasoff & Garcia Moreno 2002), the hospice and palliative medicine movement (Emanuel et al 2000), patient safety initiatives (Wachter et al 2002), and the evolving standards of medical ethics (ABIM Foundation et al 2002), to name a few. The vitality of these movements is made apparent to our students by the willingness of guest speakers to offer presentations during ''The Profession of Medicine'' about their various projects, including medical assistance for undocumented immigrants, women and disability, assistance for victims of domestic violence, and mental health issues of immigrants.…”

Cultural Competence in Action: “Lifting the Hood” on Four Case Studies in Medical Education

“…Other anthropological critiques raise other important concerns including, for instance, lack of attention to the culture of biomedicine in cultural competence efforts (Carpenter-Song et al 2007;Fox 2005) and inattention to the structural factors that often play much weightier a role than cultural factors in affecting health circumstances and health outcomes (Jenks 2011;Metzl 2009Metzl , 2012.…”

Globalization and the modernization of medical education

“…Its dominant values and practices are exported to colonize and displace the local practices of other cultures. In addition, the companion Anglo-American views on medical education, medical ethics, professionalism, communication skills, and medical humanities are also vehicles used to colonize what is frequently seen as the cultures of the 'other' (Fox 2005;Bleakley & Bligh 2006).…”